Frustrated
by Parachutingkitten
Summary: In season 7 Nya comes back to find an impostor Samurai X in her cave, but this time it plays out a little differently. One Shot.


"You're not Misako! She has too much honor to steal my armor!" Nya yelled at me, pinning me down on the cave floor. It was honestly getting annoying how much she was yelling.

"Garmadon had a nasty side, maybe that's who I am." I suggested, voice shifting yet again.

I threw her off me as we both took a breath. I was getting frustrated at this point. She had a perfectly valid deflection for very one of my lies, and yet she hadn't managed to piece together who I was. It wasn't my goal to reveal myself, but in a way, I felt insulted.

"Garmadon sacrificed himself for good! Now he's gone forever. _Just like my patience!_"

I got up, as she mirrored me.

"Reveal yourself!" she screamed.

"Sorry sis, I can't do that!" I voice shifted, as we lunged towards each other.

"I know you're not my brother!" She insisted, landing a few punches.

"Then who am I, huh?!" Something in me snapped as I felt a new rush of energy. "If I'm not any of these people, then who am I?!" I started hitting back harder and faster, backing her towards the edge of the platform.

"What do you-?"

"If you're so smart, why don't you figure it out? Who am I? Who do you _want_ me to be?!" I screamed, flipping her, and pinning her to the ground with my foot, her head edging off the edge of the floor. "Who… am I?" I asked, one last time, leaning in to see her face.

She took a few heavy breaths, trying to look through the mask, before accepting defeat. "… I don't know."

"What, do you need a hint? Do you need another clue to figure it out? Of the dozen people who've had access to your cave, which one is the pissed robotics expert who stole your armor, huh?" I let her go, reaching for my helmet in frustration. I tugged it off, shooting her a glare. "Do you need me to spell it out for you that badly?" I tossed the helmet on the ground and turned my back to her, walking towards the opposite side of our makeshift battle arena.

"Pixal?" Her voice came quietly from the opposite end of the room.

"Yeah, no kidding." I muttered, sitting down and dangling my feet over the abyss below. No one even considered me a possibility. Everyone had forgotten me. Everyone.

I heard her getting up, her footsteps getting louder. "I thought you were… well-" She stopped short, perhaps hoping for me to explain. But that wasn't going to happen.

"You know, in the back of my mind, I was kind of hoping you would think of me." My mind trailed off. "That once you became the water ninja, you might actually consider offering me the position." I heard her sit down next to me as I continued. "But no, of course not. I guess being blocked out of the team is a sort of rite of passage for Samurai X." I looked over at her - her eyes trailing over my face- as if seeing me in her suit was some sort of otherworldly marvel.

"I didn't realize you wanted-"

"Nobody did, Nya. Nobody realized that I was there, nobody realized that I could help, and nobody realized that I'd been trapped inside someone else's brain for 3 years and wanted nothing more than to get out, so don't go around feeling special about yourself."

"… I'm sorry."

I hung my head, trying to manage the anger running through me.

She sighed, trying to look me in the eyes. "It looks good on you."

A smile snuck onto my face for a moment. "Thanks."

We sat in silence for a moment, staring at the walls as the air seemed to settle around us.

"You know, I spent so long making this place, this identity, that I guess I thought I could hold onto it. That somehow, I could be these two different versions of myself, and no one would notice. It's just… It's been a complex couple of years for me."

"You'll always be the first," I assured her. "I'll make sure and put it all to good use."

"I trust you with it," She nodded. "You've proven you know what you're doing."

I looked up at the ceiling, letting my eyes wander. "I just felt so… trapped. Useless. Like I had all these ideas, and no one could hear them and it… stung. It was so frustrating. It seems like _everything_ lately has just been _so frustrating_." I sighed.

"What did we do to those boys to deserve all their trouble?" Nya looked over at me as I chuckled.

"You don't even know the half of it."

"Right! You've been inside their inner circle!"

"It's kind of ridiculous how often they would forget I could hear them."

Nya giggled, hugging her knees. "I bet you have some fun stories."

"Yeah," I laughed. "There was this one idiot who decided that giving Zane a new binary power core would somehow fix his speech pattern."

"Right," Nya sighed. "You saw that whole ordeal. Was I _that _wrong?"

"Nya," I put a hand on her shoulder. "If there's one thing that you should take away from this experience, it's that it will _never_ be the binary power core. It's _always_ something else. It's such a beginner's mistake!"

"Okay," Nya laughed. "Note taken."

"…You can keep this a secret, right?"

"That goes without saying," She nodded. "Why didn't you just tell me? Why go through all this trouble to hide your identity?"

"It's kind of a requirement, isn't it?"

Nya rolled her eyes. "Fair enough. But you might consider telling… Zane."

"Why? Is he okay?" I asked.

Nya frowned, looking back at the wall. "He's… he's worried about you. And I have a feeling he isn't exactly going to get better with time."

I hung my head. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, but I'm not sure telling him would exactly make it easier on him. "You think he would be any less worried about me, knowing what I'm doing now?"

Nya sighed. "I don't know. But he trusts you. He trusts you a lot more than I think you realize. I don't know what that means as far as… _this_, but I would give it some thought."

"I want to tell him. I really do. It's just, I don't know how much, or when or-"

"I get it," Nya cut me off. "Just remember, it's your decision. You don't owe anyone answers."

"Thanks."

"But if you do eventually end up telling everyone," She leaned in. "We have to make sure Jay is the _last_ to know."

I burst out laughing as she backed away.

"Because it would drive him _absolutely_ crazy."

"This. _This_ is why I wanted to be Samurai X."


End file.
